Joy Chukwura cleaned hotel rooms by day and studied English by night, struggling over several years to bring her literacy level in English from zero to a Grade 4 equivalent.

Fuelled by the hope of earning a high school diploma, the Nigerian refugee kept up the gruelling pace until learning last year that government funding changes meant her basic adult education courses at Vancouver Community College would no longer be free. The new fee of more than $1,000 for a three-month basic English course was simply not within her budget.

“I had a dream,” said Chukwura, a 37-year-old single mother living in Surrey. “And cutting me down right now in the middle of nowhere, I would say that destroys some part of my life again. Because I don’t want to be a cleaner for the rest of my life in Canada.”

Schools play a pivotal role in the lives of the working poor, from the crucial early learning years to career training for their parents. Increasingly, children are coming to class hungry, and schools are feeding them breakfast or lunch because focusing on academics is nearly impossible with an empty stomach. At the other end of the spectrum, their parents may want to improve their English or upgrade their skills to get better paying jobs, but now struggle to find affordable courses that would help lift their out of poverty.

A 2014 dispute between the B.C. Liberals and the former federal Conservatives resulted in $22 million less in annual funding for ESL and adult basic education, which offers equivalency classes for some elementary and secondary school subjects.

Federal funding has also been reduced for the Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada (LINC) program, which has a wait list of more than 1,000 people at VCC. (The federal government covers this basic instruction, but once a person reaches a certain level of proficiency, they have to pay for their courses.)

In addition, school districts no longer offer free courses to adults who have a high-school diploma but need to upgrade to improve their chances of better employment.

“How can people improve their lives? How can people improve on a minimum wage job? Well, it’s education,” said Hollie Williams, president of the Vancouver Elementary School Teachers’ Association’s adult education committee.

Since coming to Canada eight years ago, Chukwura has taken ESL courses as well as adult basic education courses — starting both at the lowest level because, unable to attend school in Nigeria, she arrived here without being able to speak English or knowing how to read or write in any language.

Despite needing to repeat a few classes along the way, by 2016 she had passed her Grade 4 equivalency — she can now read most newspaper stories — and was ready to enter Grade 5.

Chukwura is grateful that Canada provided a safe haven to her and her teenage daughter, and also for their B.C. Housing apartment in Surrey. But she was heartbroken when she went to enrol at Vancouver Community College (VCC)last September and learned that the previously free courses would now cost her big bucks.

“If I pay $1,000 (for the classes), what about my bills? My rent? My credit card?” asked Chukwura, who now feels like she will never be qualified to be anything other than a cleaner. “If they ask us not to go to school because we are not able to pay the money, then how are we going to do more things in the future?”

Joy Chukwura lives in Surrey, BC, and came to Canada as a refugee from Nigeria. She arrived in Canada as an adult with no education and no ability to read. She has since earned her Grade 5 equivalency, and would like to continue her studies, but is unable to as the previously free Adult Basic Education courses now cost $1000. Her low-paying job does not allow her to save for that expense.Jason Payne /
PNG

Following the federal budget cut in 2014, the province offered short-term transition funding until 2015; when that ended, colleges had no spare money to cover all the costs, so most now charge for these classes, said George Davison, president of the Federation of Post Secondary Educators.

Although no specific provincial money is allocated to these courses any longer, the province continues to support adult upgrading through its overall funding for post-secondary schools, Advanced Education Minister Andrew Wilkinson said in a statement. Seventeen colleges offer ESL programs, and four have English-language training contracts with the federal government, including VCC.

There is a ripple effect when parents can’t upgrade to earn higher salaries. This is evident in the schools that offer free food programs, which are often funded by charities. A B.C. Teachers’ Federation survey of 778 teachers, published in early 2016, found 80 per cent had at least one student who came to class hungry, and nearly half worked at a school that served lunch or breakfast.

“Most children who live in poverty in B.C. have at least one parent who works full-time. And more and more, because of the rising cost of living, we have families with two incomes who can’t make ends meet or that use the food bank,” said Annie Ohana, a high school teacher in Surrey’s inner-city Whalley neighbourhood and a member of a Teachers’ Federation anti-poverty group.

“The solutions to poverty … are not the handouts. The solutions are systemic. Why not have strong family groups that have their basic needs met so that education becomes the tool that leads students to becoming productive members of society that we don’t have to worry about?”

For the parents of these kids — or any adult — who want to upgrade skills to earn more money, the provincial government does offer grants to cover the cost of the courses. But experts say the cut-off to qualify for the grants is too low and, therefore, precludes too many people: a single person must have an income below $24,144 a year, and the ceiling for a two-person family, such as Chukwura and her daughter, is $30,000 a year.

Chukwura, who earns $18.50 per hour at her full-time cleaning job, makes about $33,500 before taxes; she is left with little after paying $1,200 in rent, plus her utilities, transit card, cellphone and food. (She also covers expenses for her daughter, now 24, who is attending Langara College with help from the children’s ministry.)

The government grants are only available for three years, which is often not long enough for someone like Joy to learn the language. “So If someone is starting at a very elementary learning level, they will only get three years to upgrade. … They are just capped and can’t move on to a better job,” said Andrew Candela, head of VCC’s basic education department.

Despite these rules, the advanced education minister argued, 7,192 students received these grants in 2015-16, costing the government $10.3 million. Wilkinson noted the grant cutoffs are aligned with national student loan guidelines.

Another setback for those needing to improve literacy skills came last year, when school districts started charging those with a high school diploma — from any country, regardless of the language of origin — $550 to upgrade a high school course.

Enrolment dropped by 20 per cent in each of the last two years, Williams said, in part because people couldn’t afford the new fees. That has resulted in fewer courses being offered because there are fewer students to fill the classrooms.

People without high school diplomas can still take these courses for free through school districts, but only in certain locations. Recently, the Vancouver school board also started offering some elementary courses for free to non-graduates.

Last week’s federal budget offered some assistance to the working poor, including delaying the repayment of student loans until recipients make more than $25,000 a year and boosting grant amounts for impoverished kids. It also included $12.5 million to help low-income families save for their children’s education.

NDP leader John Horgan said that, if elected, his party would reinstate free adult basic education and work with the federal government to make sure the ESL cuts are reversed.

“Those are the types of programs that pay enormous dividends down the road. They cost very little in a $50-billion budget to deliver and the benefit to the broader community is enormous,” Horgan said.

“I think you need to make sure that if people are looking for assistance to get a foot up in the workforce, government should be there to help them, not put up more roadblocks.”

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